‘Harrowing’ YouTube Video of an 11-Year-old Escaped Child Bride

Thanks to this incredibly brave and independently-minded 11-year-old, we will have greater awareness of the abhorrent practice of forced engagements of minors:

A harrowing video has been posted on online of an 11-year-old Yemeni girl who claims she ran away to escape an arranged marriage.

Nada al-Ahdal says she was only saved from the forced engagement after her uncle intervened.

‘Go ahead and marry me off – I’ll kill myself,’ she warns in the video, dated July 8, and posted on YouTube.

‘Don’t they have any compassion?’ I’m better off dead. I’d rather die.’

She continues: ‘It’s not [the kids’] fault. I’m not the only one. It can happen to any child.’

‘Some children decided to throw themselves into the sea, they’re dead now. They have killed our dreams, they have killed everything inside us. There’s nothing left. There is no upbringing. This is criminal, this is simply criminal.’

In the video filmed in a car, she explains why she does not want to leave her family home saying: ‘I would have had no life, no education,’ she says in the video.